(CNN) -- Human rights activists said Tuesday they feared a move by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to file genocide charges against Sudan's president could provoke a violent backlash.
A Rwandan soldier serving with the U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur guards a U.N. helicopter.
The 10 charges -- three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes -- filed against President Omar Hassan al-Bashir include masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation.
The indictment marks the first time prosecutors at the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal have issued charges against a sitting head of state, but al-Bashir is unlikely to face trial in the immediate future.
Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo urged judges to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir to prevent the deaths of 2.5 million refugees who remain under attack from government-backed Janjaweed militia.
About 300,000 people have already died in Darfur, the United Nations estimates.
But Sudan's anger over the charges could scupper talks to resolve the decades-old rivalry between north and south Sudan as well as efforts by an understaffed joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID) to protect refugees, a rights group said Tuesday.
"The prosecutor's legal strategy ... poses major risks for the fragile peace and security environment in Sudan, with a real chance of greatly increasing the suffering of very large numbers of its people," the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said.
"These are significant risks, particularly given that the likelihood of actually executing any warrant issued against al-Bashir is remote, at least in the short term," it added.